Der Zeitgeist

Broomstick Army reporting for duty. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/02/19/germanys-army-is-so-under-equipped-that-it-used-broomsticks-instead-of-machine-guns/

The question is, what is a real shooting war? And do "real shooting wars" even exist nowadays? Most military operations today are embedded in a highly complex politcal and public opinion landscape, where a few minutes of video on YouTube can make or break public and parliamentary support for military action. I don't think the distinction between hypothetical "real wars" and the actual wars the West has been fighting for the last 20 years is realistic. Even the Russian army isn't really fighting its own wars nowadays, relying on hybrid war and proxies to do their dirty work. I don't think we will see one of these "real wars" for quite some time, it's just too costly nowadays, even for autocratic regimes like Russia. And that's why the Scenario of CMBS will probably remain fictional. Hopefully.

I disagree. This thread has been highly interesting, and banning any troublemakers would be better than punishing everyone else who has actually contributed to the discussion.

U.S. Troops Can Now Call in Tomahawk Cruise Missiles for Close Air Support - And that’s not the old munition’s only new trick In a test on Jan. 29, a team of U.S. Marines called in an upgraded Tomahawk, called a “Block IV,” to quickly strike a nearby target—just like the Marines routinely do with their artillery, Harrier attack jets and Cobra helicopter gunships. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/u-s-marines-can-now-call-in-tomahawk-cruise-missiles-for-close-air-support-2a8aa4a64428

Looks like they're having tons of fun over there.

Well, the A-10 was designed to be missile bait, and still get the job done.

That's an interesting argument. Could you post a link to that article? My country is indeed in a strange postition in this crisis. During the Schröder government, there was a drive to closer ties with Russia, as a kind of counter-balance to the transatlantic relationship, which was highly strained by the 2003 Iraq invasion. This also played well in the German population, where there's quite a bit of latent Anti-Americanism. It also scared the eastern NATO countries quite a bit, for obvious historical reasons. Now, the Merkel government needs to roll back some of this closer relationship with Russia (even if it means damaging the German economy and troubling her coalition partner, the social democrats). However, I find it highly unlikely that Germany will find itself in a postion of actively opposing Russia with anything besides economic sanctions. This would not work with the current coalition government, and it would also be at odds with the majority of the German population. The only way this might change, in my opinion, would be in case of an active military threat against Poland or the Baltic states.

Trying to get this back on track, we might have a candidate for our first CMBS Module: UK to lead 'high readiness' Nato force, Michael Fallon says The UK will play a lead role in a "high readiness" Nato force that will be established in Eastern Europe, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has announced. (...) The UK will be the force's lead nation in 2017 and then on rotation thereafter, Mr Fallon said. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31147236

Maybe one additional thing, from my (limited) experience: Learn to use your infantry! When I first started playing CMSF, I tended to rely on my armored vehicles way too much, trying too keep the infantry safe inside their Strykers. That way, I was simply not using dozens of eyes for spotting, and tons of potential firepower to supress any spotted enemy.

There was no reason for that, the background story is totally fine. It's not your problem if you happen to pick realistic conflict scenarios for your games. Sure, some people (including me) may find it disturbing to play CMBS while simultaneously watching the news in these times, but that's a fault of the game.

That would be great! I always enjoyed reading the various background campaign info and maps from CMSF.

My feelings exactly. I finished the training campaign, but I probably won't continue with any actual campaign at this point, because the whole setting just feels too dark and foreboding right now. It's the whole authenticity of the game that just feels troubling in a certain context. I felt the same when I first started playing CMSF in 2007. It was just like watching news coverage from the Battle of Fallujah or the Lebanon War. I still have a lot of CMSF modules to play through, so there's enough fighting to do until hopefully things cool down in Ukraine.

I don't think these arms shipments are actually going to happen. It's probably more of a "good cop, bad cop" routine, trying to push the EU countries to more severe economic sanctions. Something like "If you won't support arms shipments to Ukraine, then /AT LEAST/ enact some harsher sanctions against Russia!"

Ok, the results are in. Unfortunately, the screenshots are quite ugly as Print Screen doesn't seem to work. The resulting image in the clipboard doesn't show the fully rendered terrain. However, I uploaded the save games from my tests in a ZIP-File to my Google Drive, you can find it at: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxTk9byWTG-hUnBodkZvRDcydmc&authuser=0 (Beware, it's 61 MB) So, the results in detail. All tests were done with the same spotter, the Fire Support Team sitting on the roof of OP1. The Team was in normal posture, not in hiding, there was no UAV up, and all spotting was done with direct line of sight. Linear missions had complete line of sight along the length of the fire mission. All fire missions were IMMEDIATE, HEAVY, MEDIUM, GENERAL. Crater survey photos were done with a crappy camera phone in poor lighting conditions. 1st test, 120mm on-map mortar, linear mission along the road. 2nd test, 155mm Paladin, linear mission along the road. 3rd test, 120mm on-map mortar, short linear mission between the two outer buildings. 4th test, 120mm on-map mortar, point target, center of building. 5th test, 120mm on-map mortar, vehicle point target (strike vehicle). 6th test, 155mm Paladin, vehicle point target (strike vehicle) The way I see it, the 120mm mortars are much less accurate than they were in CMSF. No way to tell if this is intended, the Developers would have to comment on that. With the 120mm mortars, "point" missions with nonprecision munitions are currently more like a small or even medium sized area mission, linear missions seem broadly oval shaped. In my tests, only 2 rounds in the 120mm point-building test hit the actual building, everything else impacted around. Not a single round scored a direct hit on the T-72 in the vehicle test. The 155mm however is at least as accurate as in CMSF, if not more so. Linear missions are mostly straight along the targeting line, point missions are highly accurate against vehicles. The first shell on the T-72 was a direct hit, with several following direct hits. Accuracy seemed to drop off a little when the target became obscured by smoke.

I'm currently running a few tests on the artillery range mission from the training campaign. Will post the results later. The mission works pretty well for tests, as you can can line up the linear arty with the roads in the gunnery range and then just look at the crater pattern. What's the best way to take screenshots within CMBS? I'll try to upload some shots of the results later.

I can confirm this with linear as well as point missions (non-precision munitions). Did a 120mm mission on a point target in the tutorial campagin, when I tried to hit the ATGM team on the roof in the small village (last mission of the campaign). The shells fell more like an area mission, when in CMSF, most shells would have landed on the roof itself.

Yes, but they are using Sensor Fuzed Weapons.

Currently dodging Syrian ATGMs in the "Milk Run"-Mission of CMSF-Marines. I never really got around playing the CMSF modules in the last few years. By the time I'm finished with them, there will probably be several modules for CMBS already.

BTW, the JDAM incident you guys were referring to happened during the battle of Qala-i-Jangi, the POW uprising in an old fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif in November 2001. It was one of the first large ground engagements with US troops involved, and it was also the battle where CIA agent Mike Spann was killed during the interrogation of John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban", as he was called at the time. The whole battle was pretty prominently featured in the media at that time, as there were all kinds of western TV crews roaming around there, while British SAS and CIA guys were arriving in white pickup trucks. I think one of the CIA operators actually gave some kind of interview while carrying an AK and identifying himself with a first name, it was pretty crazy. :cool: I can still remember watching it on German TV, as there was a camera crew from our ARD station actually taking cover on the ramparts of the fortress with Northern Alliance guys and US soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, while US Bombers were dropping JDAMs inside the fortress. There's one sequence that actually shows everyone covering from the bomb fragmentation passing above them. There's still a lot of videos on YouTube from that battle, some of them also show the misdirected JDAM strike that killed some Northern Alliance soldiers and injured a few US troops, I think.